Stealing Movies? Well, Netflix is Taking Notes

If so, let's start by saying that's totally uncool matey because unless you happen to be Johnny Depp, it's so not a good look. Not to mention the fact that, um, hello it's illegal and wrong and detracts from the industry and so forth ...You know the spiel already. Now walk the plank! (Just kidding.)

To hear a Netflix rep talk, though, it's actually kind of helpful to them at least when people go and steal movies and TV shows online. Why? Well, all that scallywag bootleggery just informs them of what's hot on streaming demand so they can then heave ho and get those titles on their own site.

According to buccaneers at Variety, Netflix's VP of content acquisition Kelly Merryman recently chatted about the company's BitTorrent connection — and hopefully the lass' words are not perceived as some ringing endorsement for cinematic thievery, aye — admitting, "when purchasing series, we look at what does well on piracy sites."

Ahoy, thar's apparently some justifiability blowin' in Netflix pseudo-relying on the internet's illegal underbelly to provide this intel, cap'n, because there's reason to believe that after they get the booty, the amount of criminal viewing will go down.

Swashbuckler CEO Reed Hastings claimed separately, "Netflix is so much easier than [BitTorrent]. You don't have to deal with files, you don't have to download them and move them around. You just click and watch."

Well shiver me timbers, just "click and watch," he said. Blimey! That's kinda like what they're doing with the top downloads list on the pirate sites, ain't it? Well, yo ho ho and a bottle of shoplifted rum.